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SA Rugby Annual 2015

Four week ban for Butch

The Sanzar judicial officer Jannie Lubbe has accepted a guilty plea from Butch James of the Sharks for a dangerous tackle on Bulls’ Jurgen Visser, after he was cited during Saturday’s Super Rugby against the two teams.

Lubbe has subsequently suspended James from all forms of the game for four weeks.

The incident occurred in the 72nd minute of the match, for which James was sent to the sin-bin for the remainder of the match by referee Jason Jaftha.

In a statement released by Sanzar, Lubbe ruled the following:

“After careful consideration was given to the video evidence of the incident, the citing report, the report of the referee, the previous disciplinary record of the player and his playing commitments in the future.

“A teleconference was held where his representative Mr Rudolf Straeuli of the Sharks made submissions on behalf of the player.

“The Sharks team manager, Trevor Barnes was also in attendance on the call.

“Lubbe determined that the player should be suspended for a period of four weeks from 6 July up to and including 4 August 2013.

“The sanction was offered to the player who accepted the proposed sanction.

“The player was accordingly suspended from all rugby from 6 July to 4 August 2013.”

yes nice touch. Had nothing to do with seeing red though, you could see him putting his hands over his face in shame as he hit the ground after trying to behead Visser. He has allways had the problem of losing his head for a second or 2 at the tackle. A pity, because he has allways in my opinion been an excellent flyhalf. The Steenkamp situation was long gone by then.